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Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Will New President Mean New Media and a New Hollywood?

Fundraising to getting out the vote, no other presidential candidate has used the Internet to fuel their campaign the way President-Elect Barack Obama did. And the speed that he had change.gov up and running is further indications that an Obama presidency will use the Internet as an integral tool in communicating with the public.

But what does an Obama presidency mean for media and Hollywood?

Considering that Obama wants to push for further diversification in media, create a cabinet level post of chief technology officer, expand broadband access for the nation and believes the U.S. isn't creating enough high, what we could be seeing is the ground work for a New Hollywood.

With a CTO focused on creating new security measures for the U.S. at large, combined with a more robust Internet, the underpinnings of ever more secure methods of distributing movies across the country and overseas could be possible.

As audiences crave programing that speaks to them, diversification, in combination with a technology shift, could see the already astounding number of voices explode in unimagined ways. Diversification, depending on how it's implemented (so much of new media doesn't fall under FCC rule) could mean that the media conglomerates' continued stranglehold on distribution could become more egalitarian. Smaller companies finally getting a foot into door that is notoriously narrow.

It's hard to say what the future will look like. Howevever, with a blackberry addicted, flickr using President at the helm, we could be looking at the impetus of a web 3.0.